It's only recently that I have felt truly comfortable 'within my own skin' enhancing the empowering sense of finally being home without. For the majority of my life, of which reasoning I now see to be trauma related, I have felt lost, swimming frantically searching for, a life boat, a stretch of land of peace and stability, endlessly seeking approval never fully granted. The real meaning of the word 'homesick' a part of my inner being lifelong.
During the time of which I speak
It was hard to turn the other cheek
To the blows of insecurity
However, the antidote to that, has been a long journey of discovery and recovery starting in late 2006 with the diagnosis of Bipolar. For this catapulted me into the various formats of therapy, support groups, and psychological testing, that led me deeper within than I had ever imagined or wanted to travel. Scary to begin with, but as I continued thus, the terrain became a little less treacherous, even in times of painful struggle, the overcoming seemed less insurmountable. With each hurdle, each secret unraveled, each victory proclaimed, a calmness overtook me, I found at once a peace bubbling upwards over inside of me. I was coming home within again and again.
Oh, how I wish I were a trinity
So if I lost a part of me
I'd still have two of the same to live
But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal
As specks of dust, we're universal
Yet, with all this continued soul-searching and discovery, I still felt an inner restless, seeking outward with hopeful dreams that perhaps I shall attain, an almost FOMO for what I do not have, all the while the inner fantasy of what could have been an ever distant impossibility. What these fantasies afforded me, specifically that of the childhood idealization of Night Court and Harry Anderson, was the dream of that which I always deserved, unconditional love, encouragement, and support for my entire self as I am. That fantasy impossible to become real left a bit of my inner self still broken, still lonely.
But despite this empty broken-heart within, the journey of recovery still continued, this restlessness always lead me to never to give in, give up. Along the way, these travels inner and outer coincided with my residing in Ashland, Oregon. Try as I might to kindle some attachment or connection to another place permanently, Ashland continued to have her hold upon me. No matter the changes that transform this city for the positive or negative, it's the inner work within myself that is enhanced by living in such a beautiful, transcendence of a place. Since my first arrival in Ashland at the tender age of 15, dragged here one spring break by my parents, when I instantly fell in love, I knew, then, transferring into Southern Oregon University at the age of 21 because I knew, despite all the hardship therein and that to come, the different phases of my life, from Miss, to Mrs, to Ms, student, teacher, wife, actor, model, entrepreneur, the one constant of this journey has been the loving embrace of this beautiful city, Mother Ashland.
As I walk her streets now, I am filled with the memory of others history alongside, as well as my own, the different parts of me healed by my strength upon strength, I embrace each and all, vividly with each moment, alive with the fullness of real love of self, finally and continually home within. Truly, truly, Home is of the heart, Home is of Ashland, Oregon.
Though it's stormy now I feel safe within the arms
Of love's discovery
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